Daniel wrote:
Also, the existence of such a page, and some links to it, doesn't mean all possible non-NPOV pages at Wikipedia would have to ble tagged, in some giant operation...
So:
- A controversy flag doesn't really impede an article.
- It doesn't add work for anyone.
- It saves work and time for both sides in a dispute.
- It "lightning rods" away undue emotional, immediate rewrites of articles.
- It signals to the audience that not everyone on Wikipedia is satisified
with the way the particular article is presented. (IMO, very valuable information.)
- It would affect a very limited number of articles.
Is it still such a bad idea?
-- Daniel
I think so, sorry. :-) *It's more complicated than what we're doing already, and for uncertain benefit. *People will just have to get over their immediate emotional responses if they wish to write NPOV about controversial topics--that or avoid writing about those topics. Vigilance in this area is required, and yes, I've had my own transgressions on this front. *So far, talk pages have been used to indicate dissatisfaction with an article's content; that has worked with considerable success. *It would affect a very large number of articles, as my and your ideas of what is controversial are probably quite different. Suppose I cite "gun rights" and "capitalism", User:pRobertson cites "abortion" and "separation of church and state", someone else cites "taxes" and "Indonesia".... I fail to see how it's useful. It seems likely to become a convenient axe-grinding tool for partisans. And, really, does wikipedia need another list?
Just my opinion, of course, and--as always--feel free to disagree & elaborate. :-)
kq
On Sun, 28 Jul 2002 koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com wrote:
I think so, sorry. :-)
*It's more complicated than what we're doing already, and for uncertain benefit.
I fail to see how it's more complicated. You simly add a link to "controversial issue" on the page you think is perhaps not totally NPOV. When people feel the article has become NPOV again, they simply remove the link.
*People will just have to get over their immediate emotional responses if they wish to write NPOV about controversial topics--that or avoid writing about those topics. Vigilance in this area is required, and yes, I've had my own transgressions on this front.
The scenario is not that I sit down and write passionately, and that I let my excuse for doing this be a "controversial issue" flag. The scenario is that I bump into an article that I don't consider NPOV at all, but that I don't have the time or the effort to fix then and there. Instead of having to accept the current presentation until I myself can write a more balanced one (or indeed instead of passionately slamming down my own opinion, and perhaps unwisely deleting content), I simply flag the article. Later on, using talk pages and civilized debate, me and the author can work out a new presentation. And mean while I don't have to be unduly worried about visitors (straight from Google, reading what calls itsef an _encyclopedia_) getting a strongly biased article.
The flag would not brand the article as objectively non-NPOV, but mean that in the opinion of someone (able and willing to go through the effort, and to use the civilized procedure, instead of deleting or rapidly re-writing), the article is not entirely NPOV.
*So far, talk pages have been used to indicate dissatisfaction with an article's content; that has worked with considerable success.
Again, the audience doesn't read talk pages. This would not replace talk page discussions, just work to civilize them. "We agree that the article is in dispute, and we're talking about it here."
*It would affect a very large number of articles, as my and your ideas of what is controversial are probably quite different. Suppose I cite "gun rights" and "capitalism", User:pRobertson cites "abortion" and "separation of church and state", someone else cites "taxes" and "Indonesia".... I fail to see how it's useful. It seems likely to become a convenient axe-grinding tool for partisans. And, really, does wikipedia need another list?
It _could_ affect a very large number of articles, but I don't think it will. Again, it's not suppoed to mark articles that deal with controversial issues in themselves - but articles where the controversial issue hasn't been treated fairly. This is, I'm glad to say, a rarity on Wikipedia. Most articles aren't about controversial issues. Those that are, are generally very well presented.
And what if partisans use it for axe-grinding? It doesn't mess up the article, as they might otherwise want to do. It doesn't mark the article as useless.
And finally, it is not a list.
-- Daniel
I guess I see the use of [[controverial issue]] a bit differently. If either from experience here or elsewhere you know the issue is one on which there are passionate differences the link should be in the first paragraph, with information on the page [[controversial issue]] giving what ever aid we can to readers and writers.
This link would remain regardless of the current state of the article. For example [[Tibet]] is now rather vanilla but I know from experience that passionate and sharply divergent views exist.
Fred Bauder
On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Fred Bauder wrote:
I guess I see the use of [[controverial issue]] a bit differently. If either from experience here or elsewhere you know the issue is one on which there are passionate differences the link should be in the first paragraph, with information on the page [[controversial issue]] giving what ever aid we can to readers and writers.
So how about calling it the "NPOV dispute flag" instead. :) Goes down better?
-- Daniel
On 7/28/02 1:24 PM, "Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" daniel@copyleft.no wrote:
On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Fred Bauder wrote:
I guess I see the use of [[controverial issue]] a bit differently. If either from experience here or elsewhere you know the issue is one on which there are passionate differences the link should be in the first paragraph, with information on the page [[controversial issue]] giving what ever aid we can to readers and writers.
So how about calling it the "NPOV dispute flag" instead. :) Goes down better?
It's still a bad idea if it's something that people check off. It's not necessarily a bad idea if you can find some objective metric that achieves a similar purpose automatically. See if you can think of measurable criteria which would discern such articles.
On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, The Cunctator wrote:
So how about calling it the "NPOV dispute flag" instead. :) Goes down better?
It's still a bad idea if it's something that people check off.
Why? What's the harm if the article registers that someone (and I repeat myself, someone who is willing to spend the time and effort to include the correct link to the "npov dispute" page in the article) thinks the article is not npov?
And with no harm, and gains all over, why not do it? Especially since it wouldn't have to be a Wikipedia-wide effort, a complete list, or even need to be up to date...
-- Daniel
See if you can think of measurable criteria
which would discern such articles.
Objective criteria can be extracted from the [[Palestine]] article.
1. Way long, absurdly detailed.
2. Frequently edited, and I presume reedited to put it back.
3. Voluminous talk page.
4. There are also external criteria, as one may observe on the news.
Of course the question is not identifying the obvious case.
Fred Bauder
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